


the difference

by sinagtala (strikinglight)



Series: acts of intimacy [7]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Developing Relationship, Homesickness, M/M, Slow Dancing, keith and lance bicker while dancing as only keith and lance can
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-12-22 23:59:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11977824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strikinglight/pseuds/sinagtala
Summary: Keith's hands are folded behind Lance’s neck, becausethe taller partner always leads, Keith,and Lance is low-key terrified Keith will try to throttle him before they even take their first step—but high-key terrified of the realization that this is a risk he’s willing to take.





	the difference

**Author's Note:**

> Requested by Mich. Prompt: slow dancing.
> 
> I wrote this listening to Matchbox 20's "The Difference," which is a very lovely romantic song and therefore very not-apt for the situation, to say the least.

In some kinder, more romantic cousin universe, Lance imagines their first dance is under the stars on Keith’s front lawn, to some song they both love conveniently set to play out of the phone stuck in Lance’s back pocket. Preferably with fireflies floating up out of the bushes in clouds at some opportune moment in said song, like the bridge. When you hit the bridge, you just know it’s a Big Moment.

In this universe, their first dance is... still under the stars, he supposes. Except this time that means they’re floating in space inside a giant flying castle, and it’s approximately a gazillion lightyears from planet Earth—and never in his wildest dreams would he have imagined this, but that impossibility is somehow less romantic than it is just a little sad, to be totally honest. Not ten minutes ago they’d been talking about things they’d never done and places they had yet to visit, and of course they were dancing around the elephant in the room: _Are we ever gonna make it home?_

That was what had put the idea into Lance’s head in the first place, less-than-ideal circumstances be damned, because Keith just had to go and be an edgelord who’d missed all his high school dances. They don’t even have music. He doesn’t even know what songs Keith likes, and he doubts humming “Mary Had a Little Lamb” in his ear would crank up the romance meter even half a notch, or at least lighten up the already weird, sad atmosphere. But Lance is Lance, Paladin of Voltron, Defender of the Universe, and there’ll be no saving his honor if he doesn’t make good on his word, even if he has to fight Keith through every step.

“This is stupid,” Keith mutters, just as Lance finishes wrestling him into slow-dance position. His hands are folded behind Lance’s neck, because _the taller partner always leads, Keith,_ and Lance is low-key terrified Keith will try to throttle him before they even take their first step—but high-key terrified of the realization that this is a risk he’s willing to take.

“Shhhh. Don’t fight it, just let it happen.” Never mind that Lance is unsure about where to put his own hands—what precise region of Keith’s back in the too-wide neutral zone between _I just wanna be friends_ and _I just wanna grab some ass._ He’s, despite all his posturing, woefully experienced in the putting-your-hands-on-the-person-you-like department, though he’ll blow himself up before he admits it.

Lance thinks he’ll blow himself up and his lion besides before he ever addresses the question of _liking_ Keith aloud, in _that_ way, or any way. It’s a question that hangs over his head at least as often as the question of what day it is back on Earth, twice as often as the question _are we ever gonna make it home,_ which is the one he always looks away from because he’s scared it’ll shatter him. He settles on letting his hands come to rest somewhere in the middle, over Keith’s ribcage—realizes immediately that this is a bad idea, because there’s no better place to feel Keith breathe under his palms as they begin to move.

“Let _what_ happen? Nothing is happening, Lance.” They’re rocking back and forth in place now. Keith is refusing to look at him, glowering at the floor, at the walls, at the stars shining down through the clear ceiling. But his feet shadow Lance’s step for step, until they’ve fallen together into a rhythm that’s actually not horrible, so maybe he’s not such an edgelord after all. “We’re not even dancing.”

“We totally _are_ ,” he points out, chances a grin as he begins to take them across the floor—slowly, slowly. He yelps the last word when Keith flicks the back of his neck hard. “Ow! The hell was that for?”

“You know exactly what it was for,” Keith says, glaring up into his face, across the two or three inches of height difference Lance knows he’ll always begrudge.

They don’t break stride, not even once.


End file.
